The fact that late Latin epigraphy was so long the close ally of Christian archaeology has broad implications for contemporary explorations of Late Antiquity’s epigraphic legacy (see Brandt, ch. 11). Indeed, the modern discipline of Latin epigraphy emerged in the nineteenth century well before current conceptions of Late Antiquity as an age of creative cultural evolution began to take shape. From the outset, many post-Constantinian inscriptions were published and studied separately from the earlier texts that were typically deemed the true preserve of Romanists. This tendency
A Companion to Late Antiquity. Edited by Philip Rousseau © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. ISBN: 978-1-405-11980-1
Is well illustrated by decisions made in mid-nineteenth-century Rome. The flood of inscriptions then pouring out of the catacombs was channeled into de Rossi’s new Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae (1857-1992, with further volumes projected for intra-mural inscriptions), while the city’s hoard of other texts - including those of the aetas Christiana that the editors believed had not been inscribed religionis Christianae causa ( CIL 6. 1, p. v) - were assigned to volumes vi (1876-) and xv (1891-) of Mommsen’s equally young Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (Sandys 1927: 30-1; Berard 2000: 111-17; Bodel 2001a: 159-65). Although various volumes of the CIL would randomly incorporate some recognizably Christian inscriptions (largely epitaphs), separate collections of Christian texts frequently appeared elsewhere. Consequently, regional corpora seldom sought to span the centuries from early to late antiquity (e. g., Le Blant 1856-65; Hubner 1871; see Berard 2000). Finally, as the new Christian epigraphy inaugurated its own journals and developed its own handbooks (Marucchi 1910; Frend 1996: 76-86), it further removed itself from a Roman epigraphy also increasingly pursuing its own way (Sanders 1976: 133).
Certainly, many of the inscriptions associated, for example, with the extramural funerary areas of late antique Rome, as well as other cities and towns, do often form assemblies distinct in content, style, and age. At Rome itself, moreover, much of the work of discovery and the expense of publication of those texts was managed or assumed by the Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, approved by Pius IX in 1852 and dedicated to the systematic and scientific pursuit of its goals (Ferrua 1984; Giuliani 1994: 62-5). Nevertheless, the ghettoization of Late Antiquity’s epigraphic heritage severely fragmented the discipline of Latin epigraphy and displaced many late antique inscriptions of all types away from their broader historical contexts. Historians were often stranded on either side of an academic divide and left to search out texts ‘‘cunningly concealed in the corpora and periodicals’’ (Jones 1964: vi, quoted in Handley 2003: 1). Not surprisingly, then, even a conscientious Roman epigraphist may still view ‘‘Christian epigraphy’’ as ‘‘virtually a field unto itself’’ (Bodel 2001a: xviii). This situation serves well neither Latin epigraphy nor the study of Late Antiquity, the true place of which, in the longue duree of Roman history, is now being vigorously debated once more (e. g., Swain and Edwards 2004; Ward-Perkins 2005).
Many recent studies, therefore, often transgress the boundaries set around late Latin inscriptions by earlier generations of scholars. Late Antiquity is now understood to have been an age of complex and often contested political, social, and religious change. At any given moment, the variety of cultural expressions within the bounds or former bounds of the empire was matched by the multiplicity of ties that linked every conception of the present to an image of its past. The fourth and fifth centuries especially, which saw both the reflowering of inscriptional culture in many regions of the empire and an intense remapping of the contours of identity, confound taxonomies drawn up on simplistic or predetermined religious lines. Similarly, the subsequent adoption of monumental writing in Latin by Vandals, Lombards, and other Germanic peoples signals the assimilation of those groups into a post-Roman world defined not only by Christian affiliations but also by association with even older Roman traditions of public literacy. Continuing to expand the horizons of epigraphic inquiry will further erode the barriers that have sometimes limited the kinds of questions scholars raise in the face of this rich resource.
One recent estimate places at 600,000 the number of all surviving Greek and Latin inscriptions produced between 800 bc and ad 700 (Bodel 2001b: 4). Latin inscriptions, numbering ‘‘250,000 or more,’’ account for nearly half of this total (Saller and Shaw 1984). But those numbers also have a history. The fortuitous nature of preservation, together with the difficulty of assembling comprehensive data, still partially obscures the rhythm and scale of the production of inscribed monuments and objects across the centuries. Yet, one pattern appears incontestable: the manufacture of Latin inscriptions increased steadily from the first through the early third century, declined sharply in the later third century, and then began a new cycle of rise and fall from the fourth through the late seventh century (Randsborg 1991: 108-14; Durliat 1995b: 227-32; with one qualification for the third century at Forbis 1996: 101).
Our crude data, however, also hint at the relative vigor of the late antique phase of this phenomenon. The quantity of known late republican and early imperial Latin inscriptions still far surpasses the number of later Latin texts, conservatively estimated a decade ago at 50,000, or approximately one-fifth of all known Latin inscriptions (Galvao-Sobrinho 1995). This ratio may change as archaeologists and epigraphists continue their more intensive turn to the late antique material, and as updated corpora of late Latin inscriptions continue to appear, reconfiguring regional profiles (for Spain, see Handley 2003 and Kulikowski 2004; for Gaul, see Gauthier 1975 and Descombes 1985).
Moreover, the suspicion that the sixth and seventh centuries witnessed a rise in the proportion of more perishable painted inscriptions may, if justified, also redress the imbalance and smooth the (apparent) seventh - and eighth-century rupture between the Christian epigraphy of Late Antiquity and that of the Middle Ages (Durliat 1995b: 239). Nevertheless, the third-century hiatus remains stark and raises significant questions about the relationship between the epigraphic habits of the early empire and those motivating the comparatively limited ‘‘revival’’ that began in the fourth century.
It is now commonplace to insist that the steady rise in the total number of datable Latin inscriptions across the first two centuries AD reflects to some degree the romanization of regions increasingly subject to the influence of ideas emanating from Italy (MacMullen 1982). Scholars debate about the particular motives that inspired the epigraphic habit of those segments of the Roman or romanizing populations of the western provinces and Italy who then commissioned inscriptions (e. g., Meyer 1990; Cherry 1995; Woolf 1996). Some, indeed, prefer to emphasize the heterogeneity of Romanness in this period and the plurality of epigraphic impulses (Mattingly 2004; Mourtisen 2005). Most of those scholarly arguments, however, still assert a close link between the will to inscribe and the desire to assert identity and status within (or against) the structures of early imperial culture (Woolf 1998: 77-105; Kulikowski 2004: 36-7). It is also now widely accepted that epigraphic habits are ‘‘socially contingent’’ cultural practices, ‘‘which some people might embrace and others ignore’’ for reasons that only thick description can begin to reveal (Mourtisen 2005). Consequently, it must also be acknowledged that the epigraphic record of any period is an untrustworthy demographic sample, while the motives that inspired it may just as well have arisen from contestation as from consensus.
This early imperial debate has obvious implications for late Latin epigraphy. Whether personal or corporate, lay or clerical, late Latin inscriptions are similarly implicated in the identity politics of the late Roman and post-Roman worlds, and similarly contingent upon a host of social, religious, and political factors that go far beyond the mere ability to write and inscribe. Certainly, when the epigraphic impulse does (re)emerge in the fourth century, it displays distinct features. While many types of inscriptions continue to be carved - honorific texts, building dedications, imperial rescripts, and elogia, for example - funerary inscriptions now overwhelmingly dominate the record. Though epitaphs comprise slightly more than two-thirds of surviving early imperial Latin inscriptions (Saller and Shaw 1984), their percentage of the total increases sharply in Late Antiquity. This predominance is so pronounced that the rising regional curves of datable Christian funerary texts have been deemed an index of the new religion’s arrival and growth in an area (Galvao-Sobrinho 1995). Though not all scholars agree that these regional epigraphic curves also plot rates of conversion (Handley 2003: 12-14), most do acknowledge that Late Antiquity’s epigraphic signature is heavily epitaphic and flows from sources of inspiration that come to the fore with the fourth-century sea-changes in religious affiliation. Yet, it seems clear in general that these and other late Latin texts were more or less conscious participants in the ongoing (re)constructions of Romano-Christian personal and civic identity in the post-Constantinian centuries. Moreover, as new peoples moved into the provinces and former provinces of the western empire in Late Antiquity, some of them also discovered in Latin epigraphy an effective medium for articulating their own relationships to the Christian empire or the Church. The challenge facing the historian, then, is to identify the social contingencies lurking within and behind the epigraphic corpora and curves of Late Antiquity.
World History
